


What was Seen Will Come to Pass

by Suliana



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Mentions of War, Prophetic Visions, implied genocide of species, pre-canon prequel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-04
Updated: 2018-02-04
Packaged: 2019-03-13 16:03:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13574010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Suliana/pseuds/Suliana
Summary: Riverperson, Grillby, and prophecies.  Yep, got that.(The rarest of rarepairs?  Yep.)





	What was Seen Will Come to Pass

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CyanideCupcake](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CyanideCupcake/gifts).



> You can thank cynanidecupcake for this, if "thank" is the term you want to use.
> 
> This is set before the skeleton brothers make their way to Snowdin, before Gaster becomes Royal Scientist or any of that. Not sure if this is going to be a one-shot or if I'll end up extending it to more. Grillby and the bar are relatively new to Snowdin - they've been there long enough for Grillz to have regulars, but not much past that. I didn't really put that into the story itself because I felt like it detracted, sooooo yeah. I wanted to focus more on that The War was still a thing present in most monster's minds, that it hadn't been all that long past.

Late Saturday night at the bar. The grill was closed and cleaned, only a handful of the die-hard regulars remained, nursing their drinks.  Their murmurs, interspersed with random guffaws of laughter, were like a soothing balm to Grillby as he polished the last of his pint glasses, still warm from the dishwasher.  

The faint tinkling of bells drew his attention.  New patrons?  This late?  Everyone in Snowdin knew his hours by now, right?  

Two regulars pushed their way out into the frigid night, past the dark figure that seemed to _flow_ in.  The dark robe with huge, draped cowl pulled low over its face betrayed nothing about the monster it concealed, save an indication of its height, and even that was barely discernible as it skirted the outskirts of the room, sticking to the shadows.

"Last call!"  He put his rag and glass down to fill a pair of final orders, then slid them back to their respective owners.  Grabbing an order pad and shoving it into his back pocket, he stepped from around the bar and headed into the room proper, the handles of a pair of full glasses held tight in his hand.

His flames cast dim, flickering shadows as he crossed the room, sending long shadows up the walls.

The cloaked monster had settled in, unsurprisingly, a dark corner.  A gloved hand idly popped a few complimentary peanuts towards where a mouth would be, if one could be seen.  Stripped shells appeared back in the hand a moment later, and found their way into a slowly growing pile, tidily stacked on a coaster.  

Flame elementals had better control over their magic than most other monsters, and Grillby had honed his skills over the long years of the war.  A SOUL-beat of focus on his flames turned them from his normal bright yellow-orange to a quieter, dark red-orange.  The shadows receeded, the corner retaining its darkness, as he settled into the unocupied side of the booth.

"Riverperson," he greeted, setting a beer down for each of them.  "Didn't expect you tonight."  His voice was low, the low pops reminiscent of wood popping on a fire.

"Grillby," came back the even deeper response, the tone having a thick brogue kept from days on the Surface.  The hand extended again, for drink this time, and the remaining light surrounding the booth seemed to shiver and draw closer.  

His flames wanted to pulse and push back the darkness, but Grillby forced the surge back.  River was, by nature, a recluse at best.  He always had been, even when they had been on the Surface.  If he actually came into town to seek him out, there had to be a reason.  

Pulling his magic back towards his core, his flames tempered down to tiny whisps around his hand so his cold beer would, in fact, stay cold.  The condensation droplets that slid down the glass gave off tiny hisses and crackles as the moisture evaporated as it hit the flames.  The dark red splotches on his fingers didn't hurt, per se, but it was a good thing they were so small.  The pins-and-needles sensation could easily go from tickling to painful, as he had learned one too many times for his own good.

He liked the tickling sensations.

It means he could still feel.

The dark monster, one he would have willingly died for ( _almost did_ , his mind reminded him unnecessarily) cocked his cowled head at him, keeping the brim canted downward.  "How's business?" he asked, watching the moisture on his own glass.  The light catching on the beads seemed to bend towards him, and Grillby suspected,  _knew,_ it was no mere trick of the light.  

Riverperson was one of the few shadow monsters left, after all.  The war had decimated entire populations of monsters types.  The humans had lashed out hardest at those types that fed into their nightmares, and the most visible types.  Fire, shadow and skeleton had all been wiped nearly to extinction - fire too visible, shadow being far too close to what humans fed their children to keep miscreants in line, skeletons far too familiar in appearance for their comfort.  Fox monsters had been annihilated for their pelts.

He shrugged, pushing the growing maudlin melancholy back.  Harping on the past didn't change it.  "Things don't change terribly much in Snowdin.  Regulars are still regular.  Yourself?"

"The River flows as it always does."

He suppressed a sigh at his friend's, his once-lover's vagueness.  Flame was blunt, direct by its very nature.  Shadow was vague, indistinct.  

The hood swung towards him, and for a split second, Grillby saw an eye.  A black pool of darkness on a black background tugged at his SOUL for nary a moment before the hood dipped, the eye vanishing.  

"I Saw something, Grillby."

The shadow monster wasn't playing himself, as he normally did for others.  His allegorical tendencies aside, he wasn't playing the low-level word games his type favored.  

It was like old times, when little, if anything at all, had been secret between them.

Going off his tone, Riverperson honestly _believed._

His once-lover, rare among even a rare monster type, had taken more than his share of guff over the years since the end of the war.  The War had done much to change monster culture, in and of itself - lashing out in fear and anger weren't traits restricted to humanity, after all.  That he would put such conviction in his tone... well, one of the best sayings Grillby had ever heard was "may you live in interesting times."

He took a long look at his glass, running a finger along the rim of the glass.  The moisture evaporated almost instantly, saving him from any burns, but gave him an excuse to pause a moment, to frame his words.  

"Saw, or  _Saw_?"

River's beer had somehow emptied itself without his noticing.  " _Saw_."  He shifted, seemingly uncomfortable.  His hood rotated enough to take in the rest of the bar over the seat of the booth of the booth, making sure no one was paying too much attention.

Magic was intrinsic to their world, to their  _being_.  Not just _their_ world, either - but the  _whole_ world - the Surface included.  Monster culture was inseparable from it, and a monster without was seem as a pitiable figure - essentially as a walking birth defect.  That said, talking about one's own magical abilities, their talents, was considered in poor taste.  Everyone could see the color of your magic, after all, if they wanted to - there was no need to flaunt it.  Healing tended towards the greens, defensive towards the blues, and offense to golds and reds.  Simple, logical.

Prophecy tended towards black, and Riverperson's magic, when summoned, was so deep it sucked in light.  

He steadied himself, taking a long chug of liquid courage.  "What did you See?"

The darker monster further stilled, sleeved arms falling still on the table, wrapped around his empty glass.  The air around them grew cold, even by Snowdin's standards, uncomfortably so.  Grillby's exhaled breaths formed visible puffs.

"Beware the man who talks in hand," the voice came, the cadence of the words drawing the flame monster closer, leaning heavily on the table himself.  "Hands, but not whole, hide a terrible goal.  The ones that flee have much they will one day be.  Two or three they come, their footsteps drum.  Babes that are lost, save despite cost."

As he spoke, tendrils of ice had woven their way up his glass, and the glass cracked ominously down the entire length as the unnatural chill undermined its structure.

River's head jerked up, swinging from side to side as if to clear it.  "Did... did I?"

The flame elemental held up a hand, a bit of conscious focus needed to keep his flames calm and not betray the current state of his wild thoughts.  "You did.  Any idea when to expect this?  Anything else?"

"Prophecy doesn't-"

"-work that way.  Yes, I know."  He hummed to himself.  "'The man who talks in hand' - it would be nice if the prophetic gift came with a translation guide," he groused, trying to inject a bit of humor to hide just how shaken he was.  A stray lick of flame lashed off the top of his head until he brought it back under control.

Riverperson hadn't Seen a prophecy since the final month of the war, and Asgore, mad with grief,  _hadn't listened_ , and everything that had been Seen had come to pass.  

This boded poorly.

The cowled head bobbed in agreement.  Gloved hands reached forward and grabbed Grillby's half-empty glass, throwing it back wordlessly, the liquid seeming to vanish as soon as it passed beneath the hem.  The glass hit the counter top with a quiet  _clink_ , the dregs of the brew sliding down the inside of the glass, the white head mixing with the few bits of amber beer left.  

"What will you do now?"

River shrugged, his shoulders rising before falling.  "What must be done.  Wait.  Watch.  'The pair that flee' and 'babes'... children who need help?  Maybe I'm getting better at this prophecy stuff, that's pretty unambiguous."

A nod.  "Just be careful.  If they're fleeing, that raises the question of who or  _what_ they're running from.

River mirrored the nod, then glanced around the bar.  The small clock that hung above the front door had pushed forward several hours as they spoke, the room empty of the earlier customers.  Grillby noticed and sighed.  Prophecy worked by different rules, and time tended to not be so... well, to be fair, time itself fell into varied magical classes, so there was no point in harping about a few lost hours.  "Do you have to go?" he asked, already expecting the answer.  

Shadow monsters were beyond rare now, and most monsters tended to view them differently, a hold over from the human mentality during the war.  At the end, it was what had driven the wedge into their relationship, though they remained friends... or as close as they could, given River's nerves at being social.  So many had blamed  _him_ for Asgore's inaction, fading into the background had been a merciful escape.  

"Can't," came the reply as Riverperson stood and brushed off his dark robes.  "Keep your eyes open, Grillby.  I feel like we'll see this sooner than later."

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I did that. I did the "prophetic words in contrived rhyme" trope. 
> 
> Not sure I want to continue this or not yet.
> 
> Also, since its been asked - I read a HT fic where Sans kept a monster for basically a living cow and just cut off bits to eat as needed. Still alive, so not dusted - I kinda headcanon that once the pelt is off, its no longer intrinsically tied to the magic of the base monster - hence fox-monster pelts.


End file.
